3 observations after Embiid leaves following hit to his face, Sixers lose to Pacers originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Joel Embiid played just one half and the Sixers failed to add an eighth win Friday night.
They dropped to 7-16 this season with a 121-107 loss to the Pacers at Wells Fargo Center.
Embiid suffered a sinus fracture after taking an unintentional hit to the face from Indiana’s Bennedict Mathurin, a Sixers official said late Friday night. He’ll be further evaluated this weekend.
The Sixers opened the game without Caleb Martin (right shoulder impingement) and Adem Bona (left knee tendinopathy). Both players have resumed on-court work and are considered day-to-day. Kyle Lowry was scratched late because of lower back spasms.
Tyrese Maxey scored a team-high 22 points. Paul George added 15 and Kelly Oubre Jr. recorded a 12-point, 13-rebound double-double.
Tyrese Haliburton led the 11-15 Pacers with 32 points and 11 assists. Pascal Siakam had 23 points and eight boards.
Next up for the Sixers is a road game Monday night against the Hornets. Here are observations on their defeat to Indiana:
Pacers pounce on Sixers’ sloppiness
Embiid’s passing was a plus in the early going.
The superstar big man tallied four first-quarter assists. Oubre cut behind the Indiana defense on the game’s first play and Embiid dished to him for a layup. The Sixers had a few nice inside-out moments from multiple players’ post-ups, including an Embiid feed that set George up for a wide-open three-pointer.
The Pacers responded to a 9-2 deficit by storming back with a 14-0 run. The Sixers’ turnovers played a key part, allowing Indiana to attack in transition. Mathurin poked the ball away from an unsuspecting George, leading to Haliburton’s second consecutive three. He made four triples in the first period.
Maxey turned the ball over early in the second quarter when the Pacers blitzed him in the pick-and-roll shortly after he crossed half court. Seconds later, T.J. McConnell tossed an alley-oop to Obi Toppin and Indiana took a 37-24 lead. At that point, the Sixers had eight turnovers to the Pacers’ one.
Indiana applied effective pressure on Maxey, who’d scored 45 points on Oct. 27 in an overtime victory against the Pacers. Before Friday, his season high in turnovers was four. He had five giveaways in the first half.
“They’re obviously up the floor pressuring a little bit,“ Sixers head coach Nick Nurse said. “There’s some blitzing going on as well. A couple of them were because of that and a couple of them were just bad passes, misreads by him on a few of them. But I think he’d probably be the first one to tell you that he needs to take care of the ball a little better on those.”
Maxey indeed called the turnovers “my fault.”
“I don’t normally turn the ball over often,” he said. “That’s uncharacteristic of me. I can take that one on the chin.”
It didn’t help that the Sixers came up empty on several decent looks. Embiid missed a driving layup on Myles Turner and began 0 for 4 from the floor. He’d started 0 for 7 in the Sixers’ win Sunday over the Bulls.
Only one half of Embiid
Eric Gordon was the lone available Sixer not in the team’s 10-man rotation.
While the team’s second unit had some defensive breakdowns, the youthful trio of Jared McCain, KJ Martin and Ricky Council IV combined for 16 first-half points.
Once he checked back in for his second stint, Embiid was determined to go at Turner inside. He drew Turner’s third foul with 4:49 left in the second quarter.
All attention turned to Embiid’s health at the tail end of the second. He was hit in the face by Mathurin’s arm as the Indiana guard pursued a potential offensive rebound. Embiid eventually rose to his feet and walked back to the Sixers’ locker room holding a towel to his face. He did not come back to the floor.
The sinus fracture is another injury woe in a long, long list for Embiid, who’s twice worn a mask on his face during the playoffs after returning from orbital fractures.
McCain started the third quarter and had an injury scare of his own when he fell hard on a drive and appeared to hit his head against the court. According to a Sixers official, McCain was assessed for a concussion and cleared to return.
“He said he was OK,” Nurse said. “Obviously, they’re not going to let him back in there if he’s not, and he said he felt OK. He was a little wobbly there when he get up, but he said he was feeling OK, which is why we stuck with him. But I’m not sure that he was. He’s a really tough dude … so he might be able to tolerate a little more. Hopefully, he’ll be OK in the morning when he wakes up.”
Comeback effort fizzles out
The Sixers fell behind by as many as 18 points in the third quarter.
They surged back into the game late in the third period, though. Oubre, Council and Andre Drummond all played hard and did good, physical work on the boards.
Nurse used George and four bench players to begin the fourth quarter. George grew more aggressive, sinking a floater and a jumper that cut the Pacers’ lead to 92-87.
In the end, the Sixers seemed to run out of juice and Indiana made enough timely shots, including two Siakam jumpers in a row. Haliburton scored an and-one hoop on McCain and then stopped by the bench to celebrate with his teammates. The Pacers’ lead kept expanding and they cruised to victory.
For the Sixers, the main thing that matters is yet another Embiid injury.
“It’s not that easy to deal with at times,” Nurse said, “but we’ve got to do a little better with next man up and fighting and pulling together a little bit. Tonight we just didn’t seem to be able to do it, but we’ll regroup. Regardless of what the situation is, we’ll regroup, we’ll get back to work and we’ll play better.”
